Turnkey solutions for internal distribution

Founded just a decade ago, Transpak d.o.o. has blossomed into a Slovenian business success with a worldwide horizon. A specialist in engineering and implementing turnkey distribution systems for bottling plants, dairies, food processing plants, chemical and pharmaceutical companies and logistics warehouses, it has earned project mandates from major multinational brands like Coca- Cola, Heineken, Guinness, PepsiCo and Carlsberg. “It doesn’t matter where the opportunities are located – we’ve even had Heineken rely on us for a project in the Seychelles,” says Transpak CEO Jure Lukac. “When we saw EPLAN for the first time and compared it with other design software platforms, the decision was clear – only EPLAN could fulfill our needs”. One might say that Transpak has been growing up with EPLAN software solutions, moving progressively to more sophisticated releases as its projects and client requirements have become more demanding. After relying on EPLAN 5 for the past five years, Transpak is migrating to EPLAN Electric P8 Select and planning to upgrade again to EPLAN Electric P8 Professional to access the entire portfolio of productivity enhancing EPLAN features for managing complex engineering projects. Adding functionality with EPLAN helps Transpak evolve
When Transpak engineer Boštjan Bertalanic attended a demonstration of EPLAN project planning and engineering software five years ago, it was love at first sight. At the time, Transpak was five years old and just cementing a global reputation for the successful design and execution of complex process systems installations for product packaging and distribution within large manufacturing and distribution facilities. It had hit the upper limit of what it could achieve with its existing AutoCAD software. Customers were demanding more than the software could deliver. Heineken, the global brewer, had special drawing rules that exceeded the old software’s capabilities. Electrical upgrade and cross-referencing were not possible and the software had no electrical libraries. Switching to EPLAN 5 introduced all of that missing functionality and much more. Business model – Keep things moving
Transpak’s business covers transport systems for pallets, trays, bottles and other packaging as well as machinery for assembling and dissembling pallets, unpacking and packaging raw materials and products as well as the construction of portal robots. Its staff of 45 performs mechanical and electrical engineering as well as the assembly of the machinery, robots and transport systems. Using EPLAN software and services they do all the engineering, including schematics and circuit diagrams for the electrical cabinets and forward the printed plans to the cabinet manufacturers. Then Transpak manages the assembly and installation of each system. A recently completed project for Heineken in Surinam involved the installation of equipment to crate and uncrate materials as well as for assembling and disassembling pallets. All the electro-engineering work for the enclosures was done in EPLAN. Right now, Transpak is doing the design and implementation of a complete internal distribution system for the new Feins Fleischmarkt meat-packing plant in Inzerdorf, Austria. An intricate system of belts and conveyors will move crates of meat through each stage of processing – cutting, washing, sausage production, etc. There will be a station in the middle of the operation with a sales counter where customers can buy freshly prepared meat and meat products. Even if a backlog of crates develops on the main conveyors, the system will stack crates up to 15 high in the lower level of the plant on a special holding conveyor, then when required, move them to the upper level and to the appropriate station so work never has to stop. All of the electrical engineering work was done in EPLAN, including cabinet design, power section, control section, distributed I/Os, and profibus DP net. Upgrading to EPLAN Electric P8 enhances productivity
With the growing complexity of assignments, Transpak has outgrown EPLAN 5 and is migrating to the more sophisticated EPLAN Electric P8 Select. “EPLAN 5 has worked fantastically for us but it’s much like an old house: the foundation won’t support the additional functionality that we require, while the new EPLAN Electrical P8 has great expansion potential,” says Bertalani. EPLAN Electrical P8 supports easy data transfer from EPLAN 5 or EPLAN 21, macro-variant technology, true multi-user access, single/multi-line drawings, intelligent parts selection and management, bus typology and convertibility to North American standards. It has a number of productivity enhancements that are particularly useful when starting a project from scratch. For example, changes are updated automatically in the background and don’t have to be input manually. Electrical P8 Select is so powerful it has to be phased in. Projects already launched in EPLAN 5 are being transferred in stages to take advantage of the full functionality of the new program. Even as it begins to benefit from the enhancements offered in Electric P8 Select, Transpak has already determined that it can improve staff productivity and project management capabilities further by upgrading to the even more fully featured Electric P8 Professional in the near future. Transpak engineers will gain access to functions like PLC processing and bus extension with cross-page PLC editing, automatic PLC diagrams and card overview, automatic conversion of multi-line/single line representation, multi-language translation and revision management for converting documents for revisions as lists or graphics, all of which will further enhance the company’s electro technical engineering capability. Single engineering platform facilitates data transfer
Graduating to EPLAN Electric P8 also gives Transpak the opportunity to add the complementary EPLAN Fluid platform module for engineering pneumatics and hydraulics. EPAN Fluid boasts such features as error-checking as well as an interface to the FESTO component catalogue. EPLAN Electric P8 and EPLAN Fluid share the same unique platform and database which enable interactive data exchange between the programs. Data need only be entered once. What is inspiring about each EPLAN release, says Bertalanic, is that the software developers understand the challenges faced by engineers and provide the solutions to overcome them. After sales service and support is crucial
When Transpak engineers at headquarters in Murska Sobota near the Hungarian frontier encounter an issue with their EPLAN software, support staff at EXOR-ETI (www.exor-eti.si) in Ljubljana about 125 kilometres away are there in seconds to help – without ever leaving the Slovenian capital. They can basically trouble-shoot any issue at Transpak by remote control, says Matjaž Berce, general manager of EXOR-ETI, EPLAN’s official distributor partner for Slovenia. “If there are any difficulties with drawings or applications, our technicians can easily connect to the computers at Transpak and help them online in real time.” The quality of after-sales service was another reason Transpak chose EPLAN. Once they make a sale, many software companies aren’t as responsive to customers’ needs, but for EXOR-ETI, after-sales service and support is what builds an enduring relationship with a customer. “Providing excellent after-sales service maintains our credibility with the customer and makes them more likely to invest in further products and solutions,” says Berce. “EXOR-ETI handled all implementation and training on our new EPLAN software in a professional manner,” says Transpak engineer Boštjan Bertalanic. “Any time we had questions or problems, EXOR-ETI helped us resolve them.”